There's ads on social media?

Adrian Lowe

FACEBOOK continues to reign supreme as Australia’s most popular social media website and Victorians are among the networking giant’s biggest fans.

On average, Victorians have 253 Facebook friends or social media followers each, the most in the country, are the most likely to check their accounts more than five times a day, the second least likely to not have an account and average 21.3 visits each week.

That’s according to the Yellow Social Media Report, published today by Sensis, which has also found that LinkedIn and Twitter have almost doubled in popularity nationally among social media users.

Social media users aged 40 to 49 are the most likely to use LinkedIn, while Twitter is most popular with users aged 20 to 29.

Facebook has a 98per cent penetration of Victoria’s social media users, the highest of any mainland state, compared with 19per cent for LinkedIn, its nearest rival.

Myspace was mentioned just once in the 52-page report, when 37per cent of the users who said they had stopped using a social media site nominated the website.

On average, the number of friends or followers for each man was 246, growing from 209 in the 2011 report, but for women, the number dropped from 224 last year to 211 this year.

The report authors surveyed 1015 Australians about their internet and social media usage — of that, 606 used social media. Nationally, 33per cent said they check social media first thing in the morning and 40per cent said they checked it as the last thing before bed.

‘‘What we’re actually seeing is that it’s at the top of mind all day ... it really is becoming a primary communication point,’’ Sensis emerging business & innovation group general manager Simon Betschel said.

Almost half of all respondents said they did not notice advertising on social media.Of the 409 internet users surveyed who did not use social media, overwhelmingly, their reason was that it didn’t appeal to them or they weren’t interested. Security concerns came second, followed by thoughts it was too time-consuming.

Just over 30 per cent of social media users said they had increased the amount of time they spent social networking in the past year, highest in the over 65 age group with 44 per cent. But 40 per cent of 14 to 19-year-olds said they had cut back and when asked of their perception about how much time they spent on social media, 49 per cent said it was too much.

And the next time you go to borrow a friend’s smartphone, remember this: 5 per cent of users said they had accessed social media in the bathroom, and another 5 per cent said they had used it on the toilet.